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I have been a bit fixated lately on knowing how well I would be doing by now without my excess weight. I’ve been at this for 6 months now, and I feel strong, but anything cardio always kills me. I wanted to know if that is because of the extra kilos, or if my lungs are just shit.

So I proposed the challenge to Royce of a workout with 40kg on him. Now Royce weighs a couple of kilos more than me, but I have 50kg+ to lose and he has 13kg so it evens out if he wears 2 20kg vests. Of course I was just thinking something like Helen, but Royce took the idea one step further, or 1000 steps!…………….Sorry, I had to!

During the Paleo challenge we did the 1000 steps in Melbourne, and it nearly killed me! It took me easily twice as long as everyone else, and my legs were shaking by the end of it. I had to constantly stop for breathers, but thankfully I never sat down. Royce stayed with me the whole time, but he looked like he was going for a leisurely stroll through the shops, whereas I looked like I was being chased by a pack of rabid dogs!

So Royce decided to do the 1000 steps again, wearing the 2 20kg weight vests, and because it sounded stupid and crazy, Chase decided he had to do it as well!

I can’t believe they did it! It means so much to me that they would put themselves through that just to better understand what I deal with every day. They even tried a few push ups at the top!

If you have someone who you are trying to help motivate to lose weight, I would definitely recommend something like this. I think its important to understand that if you can run faster or jump higher its not always because you’re stronger or fitter, sometimes its because they are carrying more than you realize.

That’s why I love when we do partner carries at the box! I weigh as much as a lot of the female pairs on my own, and its great to see that no matter how fit you are, you’re going to slow down with that much load on you

It was an amazing show of solidarity, It really inspired me to push harder. If I can keep up as well as I do now, Imagine what I will be capable of when I’m not carrying an extra person worth of weight!

They survived it, but it definitely wasn’t pleasant for them. I will always be grateful to them for helping me to put things into perspective.

I can’t wait until I’ve lost my weight and I can go back with 50kg on me and do the steps again!

1 banana split open like a hot dog bun (don’t cut through the skin underneath!) walnuts, dried fig, cinnamon, honey, coconut oil or butter. In a preheated oven on 180C until its golden and mushy, which takes about 10 minutes.

So the Paleo Challenge is over, and while right now I keep thinking it wasn’t too bad, it really was.

Day 1 we did ‘Helen’. This is our yard stick to measure how much our performance has improved. We had composition tests done, and we got all the info we would need to complete the challenge including food diaries to submit each week to make sure we were honest. I was feeling good about starting the challenge, I was sure it wouldn’t be that hard….HA HA HAAA.. Idiot!

Week 1 was OK. I was having cravings for food, but nothing I couldnt handle. I asked heaps of questions about the food and was constantly texting Ben for help. We hand in our food diaries and come in on the Saturday to hear the results, but there was a twist….We were warned at the beginning of the week that If anyone cheated we all had to complete 1 round of Fran! And I’m thinking; “Shit, OK, we’ll be fine, maybe one or two people will cheat so prepare yourself for Fran as the worst case scenario.” I didn’t cheat, Royce didn’t cheat so we’re feeling pretty good going in, after all, it was the first week, no one could really of derailed after just one week of Paleo right?.

WRONG!!

Guess how many cheats there were in the first week? NINE! Mother fuckers! There’s only 30 people in the challenge and nearly a third of them cheated in the first week! So we’re told that as punishment we will be doing triple Fran!

Let me say that again so you can fully grasp it….TRIPLE FRAN!!

Worst 30 minutes of my life! By the end of it I was a lovely shade of translucent green, covered in sweat like someone had hosed me down, and laying on the concrete outside desperately trying not to throw up or pass out!

Worst thing is we were not told who had cheated, so I did not know who to direct my rage towards!

Week 2 My skin was crawling. I was having really bad cravings for anything non paleo, and shit I wouldn’t usually want like ice cream, or scotch! I was sure I could of chewed the paint off the walls if there was even a slight chance it wouldn’t destroy my teeth. I didn’t cheat, but I did become an irrational she bitch who was pretty tough to hang around!

We had a challenge of wearing a pedometer and trying to get the most steps for a week. The winner would receive 3 cheat meals to hand out to fellow participants (you cant win the challenge if you have cheated).

End of the week comes and it goes like this; we receive a text saying a member of the challenge has cheated, and we need to suggest punishment for them to do. I immediately say to Royce to be careful what he suggests, because its a trap, and that everyone will need to do the punishment. To which he replies, “No, they said it was a punishment for the person who cheated”. HA! not likely, as soon as we come in on the Saturday its a surprise compilation WOD of all the suggestions everyone sent in during the week! MO FO

Week 3 and I’m just constantly depressed. Its been 3 weeks since I’ve eaten anything other than Meat, Veg, nuts and fruit, and everything is starting to taste the same. I’ve given up, given in to the lifestyle, I walk past the food I want with my head down in mourning, not even looking wistfully or longingly from afar.I didnt cheat, but I did lose the will to live.

We were told we had to collectively row in meters the amount of steps that won the previous weeks pedometer challenge. It ended up being just over 111,000 meters, and we were told there would be a really nasty penalty if we did not meet that number. The person who rowed the most out of the group would win the power to remove 3 cheats from peoples histories. Royce did the most amount of rowing, mainly because we thought it was for a free cheat meal rather than a past indiscretion, and he wanted to give one to me. But that’s not how Ben plays the game, so he took the strikes from the people who were given cheat meal penalties in the previous week. We were all sure that no one would do any rowing until the last day and then it would be a mad dash to the finish line, but we actually ended up being finished by Wednesday.

We managed to complete the challenge, so we never found out what the horrible penalty was, and I’d say its a good thing because (and I quote Ben here) “Trust me, you don’t want to find out what it is!” We did the 1000 steps as a group, and although it was difficult it was also a lovely day.

Final Week we had no extra challenge (I’m assuming the challenge was just to survive the last week with your sanity intact!) we come in on the Sunday and do Helen again to get our improvements. I have been sick/injured for the last 2 weeks so my Helen time actually got longer, but I don’t care that much. By the end of the fourth week my cravings were settling down and I had recovered some of my mental faculties.Everyone got better and healthier, and at the end of the day, we all made it through.

My body didn’t adapt to Paleo in that time. My recovery was slower, I was more tired and less switched on at work, and weirdly my coordination suffered. But, big news, my muscle quality went from extremely poor to average! WOOHOOO! huge news! So I am going to try and continue with Paleo, maybe just add some dairy.

Everyone said to me that after the challenge my taste buds would of changed and that my favorite foods wouldn’t taste nice anymore. And while I no longer crave bread or pasta (WIN!!) they were full of it!

In doing the Paleo challenge I have come to roast just about everything.

Its so easy; preheat oven when you get home and put veggies and meat on trays with olive oil, salt and pepper. Put trays in oven when you leave to train and when you get back from the box dinners ready!

This particular batch is sweet potato, pumpkin, field mushrooms and whole red capsicum with a rolled pork shoulder.

So its 1 week into the Paleo Challenge and Ben has organised for Chad Mackay to come to the box for a demo and Q&A. I’m not ashamed to say that I geeked out a bit (a lot) and was overly excited for it!

For my fellow Aussies who don’t know who Chad Mackay is, please promptly slap yourself in the face for not being up to date on CrossFit news! For anyone abroad who doesn’t know; Chad Mackay is the 11th fittest man in the world, highest ranked for male Aussies at the 2013 CrossFit Games, and recently represented Australia on Team World at the 2013 CrossFit Invitational.

He was in Melbourne for the Schwartz’s Challenge, and Ben got him to come in for an evening to run through snatch technique, work up to a heavy lift, and do a Q&A with us.

It was awesome! When you see the CrossFit Elite its usually with other athletes, but to see him in person was a bizarre experience. He’s SO MUCH bigger up close than you would think! His legs are like tree trunks and he’s got a huge frame. Funny thing is that he was a very down to earth, easy to talk to person. He answered all our questions with real thought, not just like he had answers memorised to parrot out when asked the same things over and over, and he was very interested in our own experiences as well.

He showed us the exercises he uses to speed up his snatch catch and improve his squat, he talked about his nutrition and programming, and how he handles his recovery. He posed for photos and hung around to chat with us after the session.

It was a great, inspirational night for everyone involved, and while I was inspired, it also kind of had the opposite effect on me.

Chad Mackay is an amazing athlete, hands down, but he spends 99% of his time working on his performance. Everything he eats is carefully selected, life scheduled for optimum sleep, recovery and programming…. Wouldn’t it be exhausting?

I used to love toying with the idea of competing once I’ve lost all my weight. As I’ve said before I have a bit (a lot) of an obsessive personality and tend to go head first, 100% crazy obsessed with anything I enjoy. CrossFit was one of those things for me, I thought I would dedicate my life to becoming a better athlete, eventually start competing and try to go to the Games. (Don’t laugh, you’ve had that thought too!) Maybe I would become a trainer, or open my own box, the CrossFit sky was the limit.

But now…I don’t know.

Maybe the shine is off the apple, maybe I am appreciating CrossFit for what it is, maybe Chad Mackay outlined what that life is really like and now I don’t know if that is for me? I’m still super competitive, and will probably be swept up in it when the games swing around again, but for now I think I enjoy it too much to want to be consumed by it.

Chris Spealer wrote a great article here and it talks about the different mindsets and lifestyles required for each level of CrossFitter. I think its a great read, and probably true of just about any sport, check it out.

I love CrossFit and never want to stop. Its changed my life, and my views on nutrition and fitness. I am constantly amazed by what my body can do, and every time I complete a WOD I thought I couldn’t do I am inspired to try harder on the next one. Run a little bit faster, lift a little bit heavier, get a little bit better every day. I am depressed when I have to miss a WOD, and am getting to the stage now where I can find a WOD fun, not just a brutal form of torture.

BUT… I don’t know if I ever want to dedicate my life to becoming elite and start hating it for the amount of time and energy it sucks up. I think I could just be happy being obsessed with it as I am, but still having a life outside the CrossFit universe.

Who knows what the future holds for me, I’m trying not to get hung up on it.

Thank you to Chad Mackay for sharing a bit of his world with us, and a BIG thank you to Ben for putting this great experience together for us!